The invention relates to computer and telecommunication network monitoring and management and, more particularly, to methods and systems for correlating collected event data with administrators, management policies and procedures.
When most end users think about information technology (IT), they are more concerned with reliability and speed of the business critical services that IT delivers than the growing infrastructure that supports those services. Meanwhile, reliance on an ever-widening web of network, system, database and application resources makes these services even harder to manage.
With this critical reliance on the network, and the services provided, it is essential to pinpoint the probable cause of real or potential service delivery problems and resolve them quickly. To do this, administrators must first understand the entire infrastructure, the IT resources that support it, and how they work together to deliver services. Incoming events must be continuously sifted through to detect those affecting an enterprises ability to sustain service levels.
Improving service levels while reducing costs is every IT manager's goal, whether the service is being provided to an external subscriber or an internal end user within a corporate enterprise. The key to realizing these goals is optimizing processes and ensuring that policies are well planned and enforced.
In many organizations, the process of handling network and system faults is much less than one hundred percent efficient. Often, tangible economic benefits can be realized by simply automating the task of analyzing the impact of network faults on services, business units and customers. Further efficiencies can be achieved by optimizing policies for fault escalation and resolution.
Identifying and maintaining the following information is critical to maintaining acceptable network service levels:                1) What business processes are impacted by incoming faults?        2) How should work be prioritized and responsibility assigned for incoming faults?        3) What policies should be followed for resolving incoming faults?        
Network access becomes increasingly critical to the performance and success of organizations. There is thus a need for a system for allowing network operators to quickly determine answers to the preceding three points.